Here’s the scoop on what your highest achievers want from your firm.

To find out what promising young
accounting professionals want from employers, the AICPA Private
Companies Practice Section (PCPS) conducted a new “Top Talent
Study.” CPA firm partners asked their most highly valued
nonpartner employees about their hopes for growth opportunities,
job benefits and firm culture, and how those factors influenced
their decision to join or stay with a firm. For comparison PCPS
had partners rate the same issues.

The survey found that talented
staff members are a complicated group concerned with balancing
their careers and their personal lives: Their top reasons for
joining a firm are career growth opportunities, paid
personal/vacation time and salary.

The partners who are hiring and
working with this group of young people seem to understand
they are a multifaceted generation. The two groups appear to
be on the same wavelength about many career issues but
partners and young staff order their priorities differently.

There are some disconnects: 76%
of the young CPAs said they were interested in being groomed
for a senior position. Ironically, another recent PCPS study
found that the vast majority of the CPA firms surveyed did not
have a leadership development program, a career professional
program or a partner-in-training program.

The most valuable young staff
members prize financial incentives such as good pay
and generous benefits, a clear career path, an inspiring
workplace, an opportunity to use their talents, shared
information about the firm, a balanced schedule, respect for
their opinions and recognition of their efforts. Those factors
are persuasive in keeping the best talent.

Anita Dennis is a JofA contributing editor and freelance
business writer.

t’s a stubborn fact that just isn’t going away:
Finding and retaining qualified staff is the top concern of CPA
firms—still. The latest AICPA PCPS “Top Issues in Practice Management”
survey showed that result again, as it has done since 1997, when it
began polling. Even though enrollment in accounting programs has gone
up, the demand for accounting expertise also has grown tremendously as
firms and companies scramble to find qualified staff. The National
Association of Colleges and Employers says accounting is one of the
most popular majors among employers hiring at the bachelor’s degree
level.

To address the staffing challenges, the AICPA Private Companies
Practice Section (PCPS) set out to learn more about the attitudes and
aspirations of the most promising young accounting professionals in
order to provide valuable insights for firms seeking to recruit and
retain them. Its “Top Talent Study,” much like one performed in 2000,
asked the most highly valued nonpartner employees about their hopes
for growth opportunities, job benefits and firm culture, and how those
elements affected their decisions to join or stay with a firm. For
comparison purposes, PCPS also asked partners to offer their opinions
on the importance of all the same issues in hiring and retention.

CPAs clearly appreciate the value of knowing what bright prospects
want. “The most important thing we can offer our clients that makes us
different from other firms is the quality of our people,” says Deborah
Sessions, a partner of Porter Keadle Moore in Atlanta. “So we need to
develop good relationships with the promising people who work here.”

Interest in the
Profession

More than 400,000 students have responded to the AICPA
Start Here, Go Places campaign.

WANTING IT ALL The talented staff members who took this survey are a
complicated group, people who appear to place a balanced emphasis on
their careers and their personal lives. Their top reasons for joining
a firm are career growth opportunities, paid personal/vacation time
and salary—in that order (see exhibit 1 ).

The good news is that the partners who are hiring and working with
this group of young people seem to understand that they are a
multifaceted generation. While both sides are not always in lockstep
in terms of how they would order their priorities, the two groups are
on the same wavelength (see exhibit 1 and exhibit 2 ).

Career growth expectations, time off and salary continue to be
important to hires and are a big factor in retention. Again, partners
were generally in sync with this group, understanding their ambition
and their desire to be associated with a great firm (see exhibit 3 ).

But while firm leaders may be aware of promising younger staff
members’ expectations, other AICPA research raises questions about
whether they have taken concrete steps to meet them. In the “Top
Talent Study,” 76% of the young CPAs said they were interested in
being groomed for a senior position. Another recent PCPS study of firm
staffing policies found, however, that 93% surveyed did not have a
leadership development program, 90% did not have a career professional
program and 89% did not have a partner-in-training program. Such
programs can reassure ambitious staff members about the career
opportunities within a firm and clarify firms’ expectations. The same
study also found that most firms did not have a documented
pay-for-performance plan to align compensation with firm strategic
initiatives. Such plans can reinforce firm goals and reward talented
staff members for efforts that help achieve them.

WHAT WORKS AT OTHER FIRMS The “Top Talent Study” provides insights into some of the
benefits, perks and opportunities that are likely to be of importance
to your most valuable young staff members. In addition, PCPS asked
partners at some firms with particularly low turnover to what they
attributed their success. Here are some of their best practices for
recruiting and retention.

Line up your incentive pay programs with your firm’s
strategic goals. In the race to create a place where
people want to work, begin by determining your firm’s unique values
and long-term goals. Then create policies and procedures that support
them, says former AICPA Board Chair Leslie Murphy, group managing
partner of Plante & Moran in Southfield, Mich.

This focus is important to top talent, whose “respect for [the]
firm’s mission statement” is a chief reason they stay. “It’s a matter
of thinking through the firm’s core philosophy and determining what
people should be rewarded for,” Murphy says. “Is their compensation
commensurate with their overall contribution to the firm?” Does it
appropriately reward recruiting, mentoring “and other nonfinancial
areas?”

The program needn’t be elaborate to be effective. It can address
simple issues such as whether this person is a good technician,
relates well to clients and gets along well with other firm members,
she says.

Understand what matters to your staff. “Staff
members today want more quality time,” says Herb Schoenfeld, managing
partner of Schoenfeld Mendelsohn Goldfarb in Woodbury, N.Y. He points
out that while people used to be willing to work overtime for just
pay, for instance, today many “want comp time and more vacation.” Once
firm leaders determine their own strategic goals, they should consider
what incentives will motivate their staff to achieve them. The answers
may be different at each firm; it’s worth asking staff in order to
find out.

Provide a clear career path. “Understanding
the next step is important to getting ahead,” Murphy notes. “We always
try to paint staff a picture of what happens next.” You can create
your own career paths and competency assessment continuums or adapt a
resource such as the AICPA Competency Self-Assessment Tool (CAT) for
your own needs (
www.cpa2biz.com/CS2000/Products/CPA2BIZ/AICPA+Competency+SelfAssessment+Tool.htm
).

Training is a vitally important prerequisite to advancement.
Lattimore, Black, Morgan & Cain in Brentwood, Tenn.,
created a continual learning platform that establishes the technical
and systems knowledge benchmarks and the marketing and business
development skills for each level. A learning coordinator works with
departmental managers to design courses that appropriately address the
firm’s training needs, says managing principal David Morgan. At
smaller firms, partners can scope out career and growth paths by
brainstorming about the skills and training requirements for each
level.

Make the best use of your talent. At many
firms staff members perform some clerical functions that could be
handled by administrative staff. Adding support staff to cover these
tasks could pay for itself if it generates more billable hours or
marketing time and helps retain key people.

Share some financial information with staff.
Sessions and her partners believe that doing so shows
employees “ ‘we’re proud of what we’re doing and we want you to
understand it.’ We don’t share all the details, but we give them
snapshots of what matters,” she says. “We want them to know how we
make money and how we create value and bill for their time. It makes
them better business people.”

Reinforce the need to strike a healthy balance.
Some practitioners report firms’ work/life balance
programs aren’t being fully used. Even if promising staff members
aren’t using flexible schedules, it is important for firm leaders to
fully support those initiatives. (See “ The
Work/Life Balance Sheet So Far, ” JofA , Aug.06, page
45.)

One step toward achieving work/life balance is to shift the workload
out of busy season as much as possible. “That’s one way to make more
money and keep people happier,” says Morgan. His firm has focused on
year-round engagements related to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, such as
internal audit outsourcing.

Find out whether they are satisfied. Morgan’s
firm used employee surveys to determine staff satisfaction—and reaped
a surprise dividend. “When we learned that about 98.5% of our staff
said they’d join the firm again if they had the chance, we used that
information in our promotional materials. It’s a way to tell people
this is a great place to work and it has helped us attract good
talent.”

The firm also makes an effort to recognize staff efforts.
“You never forget how you felt when you were a staff
accountant and your weekend was ruined because you had to finish an
assignment, but you’ll remember if someone thanks you for doing it or
recognizes you for a job well done,” he says.

Include staff in the hiring process. “We won’t
hire candidates if the staff members don’t like them,” says Sessions.
“They are the people who will have to work with them.” When recruiting
new staff or interns, Sessions’ firm involves younger firm members to
obtain their perspective and to demonstrate confidence in them.

Treat staff as well as the people you’re trying to hire.
Many practices roll out the red carpet for potential
recruits, but often it ends there. At Sessions’ firm the partners
provide numerous social events for the people already on staff, as
well as outings to baseball games and other events to show the firm’s
appreciation. “We want to constantly show them that we are glad
they’re part of the team,” she says.

Be generous. At Schoenfeld’s firm, long-term
employees might receive a company credit card or partial payment of
their car lease. “If they take the CPA exam, we loan them the money,”
he says. “If they pass the test and stay with us for a year afterward,
we forgive the loan.” Long-standing employees also have their
professional dues and CPE paid. The firm gives new employees vacation
based on one day for every full month they work. The practice also
allows up to two weeks’ comp time. Staff might also get impromptu
bonuses for extraordinary efforts. “People have told us, ‘No one else
would do this for me,’” he says.

Make work fun. Games and competitions are one
way to motivate and reward employees. “Our firm is very competitive,”
Sessions says. For example, in one program called Innofix (for
“Innovation Fixation”), people competed to come up with the best
firm-improvement ideas in any area, from administration to client
service to internal accounting to recruiting. At the end of the
contest, six winning teams presented their ideas to the partner group
for implementation consideration and they got monetary prizes. “We
were letting them know we were interested in their ideas,” she says.

WELL WORTH THE EFFORT Overall, the results of the “Top Talent Study” are very positive
for the profession. Firm leaders may not offer everything their top
talent seek, but they seem to be well aware of what’s expected. That’s
good news, because the stakes are high. “The worst thing you can have
is turnover,” says Schoenfeld. “There is extensive training to be done
each time someone is hired and it can affect the work product. It’s
worth it to do all you can to prevent it.”

For more information or to make a purchase, go to
www.cpa2biz.com
or call the AICPA at 888-777-7077.

Web sites For more information on how to help
aspiring CPAs learn more about the accounting
profession and available career opportunities, go to
www.startheregoplaces.com . For more information about small firm
staffing issues, go to the PCPS Firm Practice
Center, http://pcps.aicpa.org
. For more information about guidance for
staffing and training-needs analysis, go to www.cpa2biz.com/CAT
. For more information about careers and
work/life opportunities, go to www.aicpa.org/worklife
. For more information about online
workplace flexibility for CPA firms and corporations
e-mail educat@aicpa.org
or order FlexWise on www.cpa2biz.com
.